Higgs Boson Particle May Spell Doom For the Universe

BBC News also have a report about this.

The significance seems to be that the universe may be cyclic, i.e. it's just one damn big bang after another.

I'm reading it as eventually the universe will fade to a near-perfect vacuum, which turns out to be unstable as a quantum fluctation will suddenly make a tiny bubble pop into existence and grow at light speed.

Mind you, as the bubble is apparently growing because it's a lower energy state, I'd think of it as the universe going down the plughole :)

Well at least it seems probable that it is a 'vanilla' flavoured Higgs. If that makes you feel any better .... :-)

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) I do not personally possess any spin that I'm aware of, and to be exact I am unsure of how my mirror image behaves. Hopefully it's positive.

( edit ) Most explanations of the Higgs field ( as distinct from the particle ) I've read refer to it being all pervasive and interacting with our previously discovered particles to cause them to have mass ie. inertial, being the resistance to a change in the state of motion as per Gallileo and Newton. Is this the aether redux ???

Recall that the nineteenth century type of aether hit the wall when we showed ( or assumed ) that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of direction of motion, and of the source of emission as well. So now the motion of a particle through this "Higgs' taffy" is governed by virtual Higgs particle interactions, or a certain set of equations & constraints ( if you prefer mathematical descriptions ). OK so this is isotropic and independent of reference frame, or there is no preferred/special frame. But have we come full circle to another aether variant, albeit with updated labels and equations ??

A Thought Experimet To Illustrate The Point

A space alien takes his space ship for a vacation and passes earth on his way. He leaves home using the latest nuclear pulse engine that provides him 1G acceleration at 100 pulses per second. By the time he passes earth he has achieved a velocity such that we observe his onboard clock ticking at half speed. I believe that is something like .66 c or some such and produces time dilation of 50%. At any rate, we observe his nuclear pulse engine running at 50 pulses per second and providing 1/2 G. He still experiences 1G since acceleration is simply force applied over time. He still registers 100 pulses per second. But he is happy with his speed and shuts off the engine as he passes earth in order to achieve better mileage. But he forgets to put on the brakes and speeds past his destination which we both measure as 'x' number of miles from earth. [The distance light travels in one year.]

Here is where things get really weird to me. By my rekoning his celestial navigation will show him traveling faster then c. Why? The distance between earth and his destination remains the same to both of us. We see him speed past earth and arrive at his destination in four months. However, because of 50% time dilation his clock shows it only took him two.

Where have I gone wrong?